Institute of Archaeology

Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe

EUROEVOL: The role of farming in transforming early European societies, c. 6000-2000 calBC

The last 25 years have seen the rapid
emergence and growth of a new high-profile interdisciplinary field, the
evolutionary study of human culture, which has produced novel ways of
understanding human cultural and socio- economic behaviour. In particular, it
has produced mathematical and computer simulation models derived from
evolutionary biology that integrate adaptation with culture and history to give
a new understanding of human cultures and societies.

The field has seen a great
deal of theoretical development and some empirical work, however, there has
been no substantive attempt to bring the different sub-fields of cultural
evolutionary theory and method together in an integrated fashion and apply them
to large-scale case-studies in history or prehistory to address specific
questions concerning the links between demographic, economic, social and
cultural patterns and processes. The aim of this project is to do that for the
first time and in doing so to provide the basis for a new account of the role
of farming in transforming early European societies, c.6000-2000 calBC,
focusing on the western half of temperate Europe, where the available data are
best, and integrating culture historical patterns, for example in monuments,
with demographic, economic and social processes.

The region selected for this study is the western half
of temperate Europe, including Germany, France, the Low Countries, the Alpine
region, southern Scandinavia and Britain, for the period c.6000-2000 BC, the
time of the appearance and development of Europe’s first farming societies,
when major social, cultural and economic changes took place.

The specific questions that guide the research include
the following:

how did regional population patterns change c.6000-2000 cal
BC

what are the links between subsistence, climate change and social
institutions, on the one hand, and population patterns on the other, and do the
population patterns reflect periods of economic growth and decline

to what
extent were population fluctuations the main source of cultural change

what
links are there between cultural patterns in space, for example monumental and
ceramic traditions, and the nature and extent of social interaction

is
it possible to identify the existence of long-standing cultural ‘cores’ subject
to ‘descent with modification’ in different times and places, or is a model of
different distinct cultural ‘packages’ more appropriate?

The
basis of this project is the creation of standardised, spatially-referenced datasets (e.g., botanical faunal, material culture, 14C dates) designed so it’s
possible to explore relationships beyond local traditions instead focusing on
broader scale patterns of exchange and influence within western Europe, from
the late Mesolithic until the early Bronze Age. All spatial and chronological
data will be managed using standard GIS packages and relational databases.